


Come Out of Your Cave

by exbex



Series: Hawkeye in Wilby [3]
Category: MASH (TV), Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Genre: Angst, Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-10
Updated: 2011-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-27 03:58:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbex/pseuds/exbex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duck's father and Sherman Potter die on the same day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Out of Your Cave

Walter MacDonald Sr. and Sherman Potter died on the same day.  
Most likely their deaths were hours apart, but I often imagine them going at the same moment, although MacDonald perished beneath hands that tried to resuscitate him, and Colonel Potter died peacefully in his sleep.  
When I put the two men side by side in my mind, it’s clear that they could not have been more different, yet, as is so often the case with opposites, their similarities stood out like so many footprints on a white beach. Both men harbored a bitterness in their eyes, but while MacDonald’s hardened over the years, I know that Col. Potter’s eased the farther away he was from the war, the more time soothed his wounds.  
There’s a balance in the universe after all, where men like Walter MacDonald chip away at your soul and men like Sherman Potter fill in the dents and the cracks. But the world is a fickle place, where scared boys can go into war and come out men of integrity, and bright-eyed children can be broken by their own fathers.  
I took a cue from Sherman and washed my own bitterness down the drain with MacDonald’s blood. I went out to watch the sun rise and pictured Sherman riding off into it, and asked a God that I’m not sure I believe in to reward him accordingly.


End file.
